Nations cup depends alot on what kind of players teams can gather tbh.. but imo looking to those flags i believe group A and B are the most balanced groups and will be really hard to get out of those groups alive for any team (depends alot on the lineups ofc)

Tornado will be more fun to play than osp5 for most teams, i expect some will whine now they lose that edge due to the map change but you cant please everyone. Dm14 still has something fun and interesting about it so i am not to fussed that its still being played and for Tornado, it was fun in the esl cups and narrowly missed out in the ESL vote they had last year to osp5 by a very minor percent so i dont think osp5 is that popular and Tornado that unpopular.

Change is never accepted well but it should keep teams guessing and the scorelines may be a little more interesting now theres a wild card map involved.

The decision gets my vote, though i cant really offer any credit to doz3r for making it.

should have taken one of the 'subtle tactics' maps out instead of osp5 though. ql community is fucking ridiculous, whine about all aim merc teams owning (and not just colwn), then start removing teamplay maps. whine about eu merc teams and the lack of national clans/real teams sticking together, then penalize those who play with a solid lineup for years. fuck you all 8(

and yes i agree, its good to remove old maps and get new ones in, but the map pool is starting to be heavily in favor of 'subtle tactics' which basicly means very simple gameplay where aim is even more important

i've gotten so sick of dm20, zzz. you can see how 'subtle' the tactics are when it has absolutely no meaning who you are playing with, aslong as they aim well. was fun for a while but now its gotten quite dull

# During matches a national team may not consist of players from only one active clan. ClanBase does not define squads. Players are strictly bound to the clan instead the mod they play in the clan.
This rule means that a National Team can select any team which consists of players from more than 1 clan.

# Players are considered to still be members of any active clan they've been a member of (no matter how briefly) after 3rd of October 2011. Activity can be defined as participating in cups, playing matches etc.

only hope for finland to do well is if provi makes a comeback _RIGHT NOW_ from his inactivity and plays 10 hours a day to get in shape for the games. according to clanbase admins a nations cup is not a cup where each nation plays with the best possible players available, but literally "a cup where you need to play with a different team". even epiotic made a savior comeback out of 6 month inactivity to play for us in _1_ game in eurocup last season so he's not allowed to play. so we're being punished for the very thing that most people say we should have more of in QLTDM, which is national clans and solid teams.

so we're digging deep into the rows of div3 players who have 5 clan matches total played, there's less than 10 total active tdm players in finland with any experience

Well the rule is there to prevent the same team playing in NC and EC. Other NC teams are basically formed few weeks before NC starts and have very limited time to practice while yours has a huge (tactical) advantage as you're playing together all the time (same lineup..i don't mean 24/7)

This rule has been there since the beginning of CB NC (more than 10 years ago). It might have even been godsmurf who put it there actually.
I think the main reason for it was the situation with cs scene at the time. EuroCup had multiple clans from the same country (6 german for example). If that rule wasn't there, the top ranked clan and its players would play in NC as well instead of the best players from all available clans.

The rule only works in a thriving community with large amounts of quality players able to represent each nation. It's borderline crippling for a game like QL. Why try and make one size fits all rules, different games need entirely different approaches to things like this.

I've been fighting against this rule for about 7 years on CB and even tho people in charge change the idea of not allowing one single clan competing in NC remains. It is the essence of CB NC.
The best it's ever going to get is teamsize-1 players from the same clan. It used to be 50% of players from the same clan actually.

It's why i think the rule was there.. i don't know the exact reason for it.. I remember there was a coloumn about it.

Well there isn't enough good players in my country either, hence why we're not competing. Even if we went with best with what we can get there is still an issue with divided community, you have tdm players on one side and ca players on the other. Some players don't see eye to eye with each other and i really don't want to deal with a bunch of divas anymore.
Judging from your other comments you seem to have a similar issue.

you should just ignore the head of cups or what the fuck the retard in charge is called then, its obviously crippling the community in qltdm.

and no, we dont have any diva etc issues, the issue is there arent active players with any experience. there are 4 players playing currently who have div1 experience, all in xt obviously. every other div1 level player is inactive.

Wouldn't make the choice between DP and DM20, they're popular and offer different playstyles. I'd drop one of Purgatory or Tornado, and really it should be Tornado. Tornado hasn't "made it" as a popular map in the eyes of the community, there's been no significant demand for it at all, and now for some reason has just popped up in this map pool from obscurity.

In fact maybe I missed it, how was the map pool determined? Tornado has just come from nowhere after failing to make an impression over the last year? Seems odd to include it in a Nations Cup.

why would you drop dp? its easily the best teamplay map out of the new ones we've gotten? if something, purga could be replaced for one cup and see how it goes. the map is riddled with problems and is far from a good tdm map.

its popular due to its simplicity, very rushy, no consequence style of play, not because its a good tdm map. dm6 was super popular too. you can just look at the pickup channel's map stats, the popularity is the exact reverse of level of teamplay and tactics required. with just a couple of changes it could be a lot better i think

and i dont really wanna flame you or the map, i know how much effort it must have taken

I've watched stermy stream himself playing some TDM lately and one thing stood out to me. He owns on dm20 (MG and LG only) and dm6 (RG only), while almost completely ignoring what the rest of his team does.

On purgatory, however, I never saw him standing out like that.
In my book, that's a clear plus for purgatory. Admittedly though, you could also take this as a sign that he can't come up with a working strategy because it's too FFAish.

all the problems stem from the fact ra is so open, quad is so open and rail is in such a ridiculous place in relation to everything else combined with the fact there are 6-7 spawns (4 of them in a way where you can start shooting at ra in under 1 second) in direct access to the most important area(s) of the map with easy routes and good weapon spawn on the spot with extremely limited health in that area thus making control almost negligible

you could draw a very small box on the map overview with 6-7 spawns in it, all the most imporant controllable items with almost no health and almost no way to defend them

just a note to everyone. if you want people to stream the games it's a good idea to ask for streamers a day in advance. since I have no clue about what games are going on in whatever leagues. if you ask for a streamer 30 minutes before the game starts chances are you'll have no luck.

I think, that it's unfair to give Russian team red card!!! It's doz3r's mistake!!! It must be rematched!!! And I guess, that Stermy wrote about russian line-up to admins.... of course he has more authority in game world than someone else from russian team... and of course admins trust him more... but!!! it's doz3r's mistake!!! our russian community was very angry about these news in social networks... but i belive that judges will take a right choice and match will be rematched...Allow russian team to play!!! Our team is very perspective!!! And Russia can be competitive to Denmark, Sweden and France! And games wiil be more interesting when there is a "dark horse" in tournament!